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General Eberhart and General Arnold interview 911 commission |
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Written by AP
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Wednesday, 03 May 2006 |
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BEN-VENISTE: Let me direct my remaining time to General Eberhart and General Arnold. Why did no one mention the false report received from FAA that flight 11 was heading south during your initial appearance before the 9/11 Commission back in May of last year? And why was there no report to us that, contrary to the statements made at the time, that there had been no notification to NORAD that flight 77 was a hijack? ARNOLD: Well, the first part of your -- Mr. Commissioner, first of all, I'd like to say that a lot of the information that you have found out in your study of this, of the 9/11 -- things that happened on that day -- helped us reconstruct what was going on. If you're talking about the American 11 in particular, the call of the American 11 -- is that what you're referring to? BEN-VENISTE: Yes. ARNOLD: The American 11 that was called after it impacted, is that what you're referring to? BEN-VENISTE: No. I'm talking about the fact that there was miscommunication that flight 11 was still heading south instead of having impacted... ARNOLD: That's what I'm referring to. That's correct. As we worked with your committee in looking at that, that was probably the point in time where we were concerned -- remember, that call, as I recall, actually came after United 175, as well as American 11, had already impacted the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center. Then we became very concerned -- not knowing what the call signs of those aircraft were that had hit the World Trade Center, we became very concerned at that particular point that those aircraft -- that some aircraft might be heading toward Washington, D.C. BEN-VENISTE: General, is it not a fact that the failure to call our attention to the miscommunication and the notion of a phantom flight 11 continuing from New York City south, in fact, skewed the whole reporting of 9/11? It skewed the official Air Force report, which is contained in a book called Air War Over America, which does not contain any information about the fact that you were following or thinking of a continuation of flight 11 and that you had not received notification that flight 77 had been hijacked? ARNOLD: Well, as I recall, first of all, I didn't know the call signs of the airplanes when these things happened. When the call came that American 11 was a possible hijacked aircraft, that aircraft just led me to come to a conclusion that there were other aircraft in the system that were a threat to the United States. http://wid.ap.org/transcripts/040617commission911_1.html
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911 investigations